


the wind and i speak the same

by trognon de pomme (Imloth)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, extremely bad decisions, kind of but not really, teenage alcoholism, to help fill the void of akira/reader fics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-06 00:39:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imloth/pseuds/trognon%20de%20pomme
Summary: it's easy to fall in love with Akira.;aka, bits of non-sequential ficlets of you and akira's relationship of varying sizes and perspectives.





	1. i.

He could have stopped you. At any point, he could have easily flipped positions and snapped you like a twig in the same time it would have taken to pour a cup of coffee. (with the same amount of ease too, you realize)

Akira is silent, with nothing but the gentle, calm rise and fall of his chest beneath them and the steady cat-like blinking of his eyes. Instinctively, he notes where all the parts of your garb are hiding weaponry, and all the soft spots of their body where he could kill them in a moment's notice. It's pure instinct for him; the act of establishing weak spots, mental or physical, and going in for the kill.

(Plotting to kill a close friend. _Akechi would be proud_. He thinks, before scrapping the rather morbid thought.)

He does not need to speak, and a pleased hum reverberating within him as he flexes his biceps beneath your hands (just big enough to fit snugly in under your grip). He has half the mind to push you off the second you announce, with an all too self-satisfied grin, “dead.”

It's at that that moment you let your fingers ghost upwards, over the sharp of his jaw, nails scraping gently over his mask. Akira flinches a bit and his jaw tightens, painfully aware that under other circumstances, he would be long dead by now at the mercy of letting such a vital area being exposed. It's your instinct to act accordingly too, he realizes. He doesn't know how to deal with the flurry of emotions he has, just from watching you smugly pin him down at arms length. It's rare that he ever finds difficulty in containing himself around you– to put the proverbial cork on his emotions and think rationally before speaking, less he messes up and severs the relationship on accident, but somehow, it's all too easy for him to unravel as if it were your blade opening him up rather than words.

It's a horrible weakness to have, but  _gods be damned_ if he'd ever give you up just over a silly Achilles heel. 

He wants to tell them that he's beyond lucky to have you on his side; a longstanding joke between the two of you, but it's long forgotten in the moment. Not that he could remember the last time he joked about your importance. So he doesn't, instead sliding his arm from under you and dragging you down, slanting his lips against yours. It's much more simpler to unpack all the complicated feelings in this way, he thinks, to find reason in an unprecedented act. (finding a sort of discreet joy at catching you off guard)


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is actually a sneak peak for the second chapter of [if you love a flower, let it be](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11464797/chapters/25704216)!

He doesn’t notice you at first, turns away just as you’re in front of the Rafflesia to tend to the bushel of flowers. Is it too late to turn back now? No, no, that’d be rude, but standing there and quietly watching someone work might be worse. Or would it be worse to turn away right after- a meow interrupts your train of thought. He stops whatever florist-related action to acknowledge the half-asleep cat, then turns to you, almost apologetically. “Hanasaki's out right now, but If you need any help, I’m here.”  
  
Oh no. He’s prettier up close. Was that a part of the job requirements? Make sure you know how to water plants and arrange bouquets, but also make sure you look like you just came out of a romcom J-drama. Befriending a loyal cat that kinda sits around for aesthetic purposes is optional, but very nice nonetheless. You swallow thickly. For the love of god, don’t fuck this up.

He’s staring at you now like he has all the time in the world, and your only thought at the moment shouldn’t be to run. Your foot scuffs against the linoleum. Say something already, the window of appearing cooler than you actually are is closing rapidly at this rate. Unfortunately, the only thing that comes to mind is how you're not prepared for this, how you have absolutely no idea what to do, and that it's going to be both horrible and humiliating for the both of you. Mostly you.

“Uh. Hi,” you begin, promptly succeeding in digging a bigger hole for yourself. It’s not too late to back out and move to a new city and never have to return to this specific mall ever again, is it? “How much are these?” No. That is not what you should have said(it’s certainly better than the alternative ‘hi i thought you were cute and that’s about all i wanted to say, have a nice day, never talk to me ever again please or I may implode’).

You’re not even quite sure what you pointed at, mostly because you diverted your attention to the nearest flower to hide any visible indication that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. You remember it vaguely from some magazine, but the meaning or name is far beyond your memory.

“The poppies? 600 yen for one,” he says, then takes a moment to say more. “I can get a sympathy message written to the family, if you’d like.”

You don’t say yes. You don’t just politely say ‘no’ and ‘thank you’, as societal etiquette demands you do. Instead, you decide to blurt out, “No- it’s for me.” Because that totally sounds not at all strange in the hypothetical situation that you might have ordered funeral flowers for yourself.

The florist’s eyebrow quirks. You’d better look sheepish and correct what you meant. And also never come back. No, stop looking like you’re 100% sure about what you just said. Stop acting like you just didn’t accidently dump fake emotional baggage on some innocent florist.

Instead, you back it up with “I’ll be here tomorrow,” which isn’t as worse, but it’s just digging your hypothetical-or-not grave further. Without a word, he goes to wrap the flower while you drop two 500 yen coins in his palm, which is too much, but he deserves it for having to put up with you.

Get your metrocard and go home, you soppy, soggy french fry. Don’t make eye contact with anyone who might have witnessed that fiasco.

 

And don’t feel giddy about having to see him again tomorrow.

 


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a shitpost turned serious made diverging heavily after chapter one of ‘if you love a flower’
> 
> aka; it’s four in the morning, why would anyone be up making pudding?

~

 

It’s not real, you realize with a tired and dull frustration at the dream’s end. You don’t do anything cliche like jolting up or breaking out in cold sweat, you’ve seen this memory happen too many times for it to affect you any differently. If you go back to sleep now, you’ll be forced back into _those_ memories. So you chose to lay there, breathing to calm any adrenaline from the memory’s resurgence. If you couldn’t have any peace in your dreams, then you can find some in the quiet of night. Or morning, as it seems.

Exactly five minutes pass before you realize it’s boring to just stay put and you don’t want to sit there with a headache, especially if you aren’t doing much or planning to do much. Okay, so you were planning on wallowing for the rest of the night, but still, not much better.

Getting out of bed proves to be difficult, you narrowly manage to stabilize yourself before your legs end up collapsing from underneath you. Your head throbs, like it ended up crashing to the ground before you could have.

Had Akira not been there, you’re sure you wouldn’t be in your own home now, probably not even in your own bed and continuing the chain of bad decisions. Instead you’re in your bed with a massive hangover. You don’t remember a whole bunch after sneaking into some bar sleazy enough to let a 15 year old and found some gross pervert willing to buy a pretty young thing as many drinks as it took for them to drop.

After that, you’re just drawing blanks with the occasional periods with Akira swooping in somewhere, most likely after tailing you again. Again, most likely for the same reason as two days ago. Yesterday?

Which begs the question: Did Akira’s trust in you to think rationally get lost somewhere?

Yes, probably, you wearily think as you shamble into the dimly lit foyer, careful not to bump into anything. The moonlight is enough to light the outline of the kitchen’s various details. In the living room is Akira, star-fished on your couch, fast asleep. You'll pretend he isn’t there for your own sake.

A pot filled with halfway filled with milk goes over the stove, small flames being enough to bring stray bubble’s to the milk’s surface. Small flames is all it needs to keep the recipe afloat, but, not enough for you though. It won’t ever be enough. As the carton of milk goes back in the fridge, you catch your reflection in the fridge, dull skin with dark circles around your eyes.

But enough of that. There’s more pressing matters at hand, and besides, it’s pointless to dwell too long on what you cannot change. If only that was something you could actually follow for once.

Minutes too late, you finally get a hold of yourself to fish out two chocolate bars and cornstarch. Any later and the milk would boil over before you had a chance to avoid another personal disaster, though it seems that in the end it won’t matter.

Speaking of which, the cornstarch begins to lump up the moment it makes contact with the warm milk. A quiet curse, before you rather forcefully smush the bits against the side of the pot. If you tried hard enough, you could fix the small mistake with little trouble, a blessing that was given to you right now. Just not one that could be taken much further than a snack in the middle of the night.

Eventually the mixture is corrected, and you lower the heat to let it simmer. Your stomach growls in anticipation, but you ignore it. Patience is key, though you suppose that you’ve never followed that advice. You work on autopilot from there, breaking the chocolate into jagged pieces. Not the most refined method and certainly not the best, but suitable enough. The mixture would need to sit for now, you can’t rush it by dropping in chocolate before it even is hot enough.

For once this week, you don’t wait around, instead, do the long and arduous task of rummaging through the kitchen. You’re up before the sun with steadily worsening hangover, so you’re at least going to some length to make this bearable. After some (quiet) snooping, you procure a partially full bottle of rum from under the sink. This isn’t your mother’s per say(the more high quality stuff is locked up), but rather a little mind game for your mother to pull the proverbial rug from underneath you. That is, if she found out how much was really left in the bottle after you were done. If only she could see you now, working around that limitation tonight.

The chocolate can go in now, as the mixture starts to thicken. The brown color spreads throughout the mixture unevenly at first. A sense of satisfaction bubbles within you knowing that the recipe was under control, and more importantly under _your_ own control. If things went accordingly to plan, this would be something close to perfect soon enough.

Or it would be, since suddenly you feel a hand wrap around yours. You aren’t completely surprised out how silent Akira was. Sooner or later he would have woken up from the commotion. It then occurs to you how ridiculous you look, making pudding at dawn in a backwards tshirt, bags and all. To top it all off, a full bottle of rum right after a night of booze-induced teenage angst. Akira, however, looks far from amused. Somewhere along the lines of concern etched across his features. But pity seems more likely.

“What are you doing?” He whispers. You mentally scoff, going back to stirring the mixture. It’s right in front of him. How blind must one be to not see it? No one could be that ignorant. Especially not the leader of a group of vigilantes.

“Making pudding.” The mixture thickens a bit more, nearly ready for consumption. Akira doesn’t budge his grip, instead checking the clock-timer on the fridge.

“At four in the morning?” You resist the urge to yell. Can he not see why you strive to do this, frankly, silly task after everything. After choosing to let yourself get drunk off your ass, knowing fully well the risks if he wasn’t going to be there, as well as _wanting_ for him to be there and see you crash and burn when he wasn't there.

He had to have seen it. There’s no way he couldn’t have known what it meant when you started pushing your limits and actively testing the waters to see how long until he just stopped caring to ‘save’ you.

Then it hits you. He won’t always be there, you knew this above all else, but unsubconsciously you never really fully realized what it meant. What you’d end up if he stopped trying or just wasn’t there. You don’t want to say it, but the first step to get over a problem was to address that there was a problem. Your hand tenses over the neck of the bottle.

“I think,” you start, stopping all ministrations and gazing into the pot. “I’m losing control over my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much more fluffier bit coming in next chapter.


	4. iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a more lighthearted prelude to the last chapter.
> 
> tw: underage drinking

For about the fifteenth time this night, Akira deadpans.

Here you are, eyes bloodshot and currently tangled between a t-shirt and a tank top, head partially poking out from one of the arm holes.

“Take them both off and start over,” he instructs slowly, then leaves the room to let you change.

You carefully free yourself from the tank top, get the oversized t-shirt on(granted, it’s on backwards, but you tried anyways.), and then attempt to wriggle two legs into a single leg space of a pair of shorts. All of which takes several tries _each_ to get it right and then free fall into bed.

When Akira comes back, a glass of water in hand, he finds you furiously typing something on your phone. He doesn’t dare give you more medicine, since he figures the effects of the ones from the palace are still in effect.

“What are you doing?”  
  
“Mister Rogers is a part of the illuminati.” You answer without any hesitation. Akira mentally notes that you said that in the exact same tone and seriousness as if you were telling him that your parents had died in a horrible accident.

“Drink the water.”

“I’m serious.” You throw your phone down on the bed, springing up to come face to face with his, eyes wide open. “Episode 1080– he makes a triangle with his hand. The sign of the illuminati. Which he openly associates with yield signs. As you can see, this means that we’ll be yielding our own self control to the illuminati and social elites.”  
  
“The water.”

“There’s a character later in the episode. Playing a triangle. Coincidence? I think not. Plays it exactly thirteen times, no more no less. Thirteen is the sixth prime number,” you go on, ignoring Akira holding the water inches from your face now. “There are two numerical characters in thirteen. Six divided by two equals three. Boom. There are three points in a triangle. Double boom. He writes a ‘V’ and words starting with the letter at the end of the episode. Add one line to the top of ‘V’ and flip it vertically. Triangle. Triple boom. Wake up, sheeple.”

“Please.”

You blink. “Can we go to the grocery store to get a watermelon? There’s water in that.”  
  
“No. Drink the water.” Akira then holds the water to your lips until you take a couple of gulps. The hydration does the trick in sapping whatever off-the-wall energy you had. The world rolls a bit as you struggle to remain upright, so you decide fuck that and drop back down. With that done, Akira plucks your phone the bed. No need for anything to disturb your rest.

He returns back to the kitchen to refill your glass and drop his cardigan onto your couch. It doesn’t cross his mind that staying over isn’t needed. Or maybe it does, but either way, he doesn’t regret it.

When he returns, you’re still in bed, seemingly asleep, so he pads in quietly to dim the lights. He doesn’t, however, expect for you to flip over and wrap an arm around his midsection sets the glass down, anchoring him in place.

“Akira?” You mumble against his side. “The room keeps moving.”

“It’ll pass eventually. Try to get some rest.” His hand instinctively goes to run his fingers through your hair, letting you rest against his side.

A part of you realizes Akira is really pretty in the dim light. He always is, but moreso right now. It makes more sense in a sad way why Akira didn’t like you in the same way now. With Akira, everything was always charming and cool, just perfect in every way– in sharp contrast with you. It’s no wonder why he has a line of people who love him just the same, platonically or otherwise and not you before you met him.

It’s kind of hilarious, you realize, how much your shit he’s dealt with even before you confessed. And how out of your league he was, yet, he still stayed. But the dam would break one day, and he won’t be there anymore. You hold in a sob. No inebriated emotional acts right now.

“Hey, Akira?” you ask again.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Akira’s heart wrenches at the confession. It hurts to see your second confession, just has it was to see the first. To see you break down because of _his_ actions, actions that were made for the good of the team, but not for _you_. So he pulls away. Barely gets a glimpse of you recoiling from the lack of support. Rushes to leave the room, leaving himself in the quiet of your apartment.

He goes back and forth on if he should go back– tell you he what he really felt, instead of leaving you to suffer alone. It’s not like him, he knows this, but it feels like he let his heart walk off without him in two different directions.

So he lets his hand fall from the doorknob to your room, and stalks away.


	5. v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our phantom thieves play truth or dare with the phans.  
> warning for mild nsfw.
> 
> ;aka, akira attempts to be slick and miserably fails.

“So, tell us–” You suddenly regret not choosing dare and judging by the expression of malevolent glee that spreads across Akira’s face, he was planning on making this absolutely painful for you. “Which one of the Phantom Thieves would you lose your virginity to?”

You sputter, some of the other members hold in giggles and shocked expressions, not that you can blame them. “That can’t be the question. You’re lying.”

“Look for yourself.” Akira tosses the phone to you, and as luck would have it, it’s there, word for word. Damn the PT's Phansite and Akira’s _excellent_ choice. There’s no way the that truth submission was random and Akira’s expression proves just that. Nowhere near surprising for the known trickster of the team. Two could play at this game, however. “So, who will it be, dearest thief?” 

“Well.” You lock eyes with him, matching his veiled expression of mischief. “I’m not looking to catch anything, so, you.”

  



End file.
